Six years after its completion, the Big Dig House is still receiving much attention. Instead of the initial ‘wow factor’ of the house however, the project is being looked at as a new way of thinking: It is an example of how we can salvage material that typically goes into our waste stream. As ‘down-cycling’ wastes embodied energy and requires new energy to reform material, ‘pre-cycling’ or planning construction with the second use of a material in mind can shift the building industry into more creative and sustainable modes of design and construction.